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Gray Death
The Gray Death was an engineered bioweapon developed by Genodyne, a subsidiary of Trident Industries, although they referred to it as "Resheph", from the name of a Canaanite deity of war and pestilence. Development Gray Death was part of an extensive bioweapon development program secretly funded by the US government as part of their strategic plan following the advent of the Eastern Coalition. While some labs were focussed on traditional weapons such as smallpox and anthrax, Genodyne was one of a select few facilities working in a new area - weaponised artificial viruses, genetically modified varients of otherwise normal diseases, intended to bypass the human immune system and spread extremely easily. The intention was to produce a disease that was uniformly and swiftly lethal, but for which personnel could be entirely innoculated against. Initial tests were extremely promising, but the innoculation aspect proved troubling. Internal discussion within Genodyne and their parent company suggested a new avenue of research - nanomachines. Trident had successfully created self-replicating machines with a diameter of less than 3 nanometers, and they had been sucessfully licenced for use in medical applications, repairing atheriosclerosis and performing other simple tasks. It would be even simpler, suggested the Trident scientists, to program the bots to simply shred every cell they encountered, while the bots replicated and could infect new targets - while treatment could be simply applied with a specific range of electromagnetic energy, or infection prevented by pre-emptive injection of "beacon bots", which would transmit a short-range kill signal that would destroy any bots that got too close. The self-replicating aspect of Trident's nanomachines had been a closely-guarded secret, and their use in bioweapon research was authorised. The issue became one of material science and software programming rather than medicine, and the Gray Death was soon regarded as a complete weapons system. The bots would target and destroy red blood cells at a rapid pace, producing breathlessness, then tiredness, and finally unconciousness and death. Time to death varied based on the number of bots introduced into the target and the target's size, but given a standard dose and a standard human averaged between six and ten hours. The victim would grow pale and finally turn gray shortly before death, a feature which gave the artificial disease it's common name. Dissemination Gray Death was designed to be deployed via drone shells, launched from super-long-range fixed pieces on the west coast. The idea was that each shell would deploy its own wings and engine for a high-speed cross-Pacific run under ECon radar, and make individual approaches to targets in ECon territory. On reaching its target, the drone would self-destruct and spread the nanobots over a large area. A single nanobot infecting a target would begin to replicate until it reached a specified level, and then launch its assault on its target. Once the target had been neutralised, the body of the target would be highly "contagious" - and only a single nanobot needed to make it to the next victim to continue the cycle. Accidental release In 2037, Gray Death was released from Genodyne's main research facility in Ashland, Oregon. The events that led up to the release were never adequately explained, but news reports of the time suggest there was an explosion at the facility. These inital reports were never followed up as news channels became overwhelmed with reporting on the spread of the disease, quickly dubbed "Gray Death". Spread of disease Two factors contributed to the wide and terrible spread of the Gray Death - the disease's total resistence to normal medical procedures and the US government's total refusal to admit culpability. The existence of totally effective treatments was suppressed in order to maintain the weapon's utility in the event of the outbreak of war. By the end of 2037, Gray Death had been reported in almost every country in the world. The delay between infection and onset of symptoms allowed the infected to carry the disease, and it took many weeks for medical researchers to design an effective diagnostic test. Immunity With the large numbers of infected people, it was discovered that a large proportion of humanity was immnue to the impact of the disease. Post-plague analysis suggested that the following groups were immune: *Those with type-B blood *Those with sickle-cell anemia *People with regular exposure to high levels of radiation, such as reactor workers or submarine crews Several other groups were proposed, but counter-examples could be found suggesting that these groups had some lesser protection. To this day the specific nature of this immunity remains a mystery - and given the collapse of society and the research establishment that went with it, that is unlikely to change. Treatment There was initially only one effective treatment for Gray Death - exposure to electromagnetic radiation in the frequency range between 10^8.5 and 10^8.6. While this fact was a closely-guarded secret, the fact that there was a treatment was a common rumour, and a wide variety of possibilities was discussed. Finally the nature of the cure was released and machines capable of generating the required field were mass-produced. However, the machines only cured a current infection and provided no protection against further infection in the future. Some other techniques proved effective - very heavy blood transfusion could slow the progression of the disease, although it would not prevent eventual death and all the blood used would become infected. Total impact Total loss of life was hard to calculate - certainly hundreds of millions, possibly as many as two biliion people were killed by the Gray Death. The social and economic consequence of this loss was almost impossible for the world to handle, and most economies were thrown into sharp recession. The exception to this was the Eastern Coalition, who, by means of extremely harsh quarantine regulations, including the use of nuclear weapons to destroy known infected cities, was able to hold their own casualites down to roughly 10%. Assigned blame As the world battled Gray Death, its nature as a constructed disease became clear. When this news was made public, the US government launched a focused propaganda campaign laying blame on the Eastern Coalition. Their relatively lower casualties helped this campaign, and the fear and anger whipped up drove the militaristic drive that lead to the construction of mechs to support war against the Eastern Coalition. Category:Plagues